On Monday evening, Donald Trump gave a speech to the 19th National Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia. Although he came armed with a prepared speech about the merits of scouting – each US president serves as the group’s honorary president – and declared at the start that he would not talk about politics, Trump went predictably off-script to talk about some favourite topics. And politics.

On the ‘fake news’ media

Boy, you have a lot of people. The press will say it’s about 200 people. It looks like about 45,000 people.

Tonight we put aside all of the policy fights in Washington DC that you have been hearing about with the fake news and all of that … Who the hell wants to talk about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts?

On politics

Today I said we oughta change it from the word swamp to the word cesspool or perhaps to the word sewer, but it’s not good.

On common values

On crowd size

The vice-president of the United States, Mike Pence – good guy – was a scout and it meant so much to him. Some of you here tonight might even have camped out in this yard when Mike was the governor of Indiana, but the scouting was very, very important. And by the way, where are our Indiana scouts tonight? I wonder if the television cameras will follow you; they don’t like doing that when they see these massive crowds. They don’t like doing that. Hi folks. A lot of love in this big, beautiful place. A lot of love and a lot of love for our country. There’s a lot of love for our country.

On crowd size again

By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible, massive crowd, record-setting, is going to be shown on television tonight? One per cent or zero? The fake media will say: President Trump – and you know what this is – President Trump spoke before a small crowd of Boy Scouts today. That’s some – that is some crowd. Fake media. Fake news. Thank you.

On the healthcare bill

Secretary Tom Price is also here … And hopefully he’s going to get the votes tomorrow to start our path toward killing this thing known as Obamacare that’s really hurting us, folks.

By the way, are you going to get the votes? He better get them. He better get them. Oh, he better – otherwise I’ll say, Tom, you’re fired. I’ll get somebody. He better get Senator Capito [Republican West Virginia senator Shelley Moore Capito] to vote for it. You got to get the other senators to vote for it. It’s time. After seven years of saying repeal and replace Obamacare, we have a chance to now do it. They better do it.

On Obama

By the way, just a question, did President Obama ever come to a jamboree? And we’ll be back. We’ll be back. The answer is no, but we’ll be back.

On the economy … and the election

I have to tell you our economy is doing great. Our stock market has picked up since the election November 8. Do we remember that date? Was that a beautiful date? What a date. Do you remember that famous night on television, November 8, where they said – these dishonest people – where they said there is no path to victory for Donald Trump? … But do you remember that incredible night with the maps and the Republicans are red and the Democrats are blue, and that map was so red, it was unbelievable and they didn’t know what to say? And you know we have a tremendous disadvantage in the electoral college – popular vote is much easier.

On children voting?

So I have to tell you, what we did, in all fairness, is an unbelievable tribute to you and all of the other millions and millions of people that came out and voted for Make America Great Again.

On at last being able to say Merry Christmas

And by the way, under the Trump administration, you’ll be saying Merry Christmas again when you go shopping. Believe me. Merry Christmas. They’ve been downplaying that little beautiful phrase. You’re going to be saying Merry Christmas again, folks.

On money, success and New York’s hottest people

I’ll tell you a story that’s very interesting for me when I was young. There was a man named William Levitt, Levitttowns, you have some here, you have some in different states … And he was a very successful man. He was a homebuilder, became an unbelievable success, and got more and more successful …

And he sold his company for a tremendous amount of money. At the time especially, this was a long time ago, sold his company for a tremendous amount of money. And he went out and bought a big yacht and he had a very interesting life. I won’t go any more than that because you’re Boy Scouts, I’m not going to tell you what he did – should I tell you? Should I tell you? Oh, you’re Boy Scouts, but you know life, you know life. So, look at you, who would think this is the Boy Scouts, right?

So he had a very interesting life, and the company that bought his company was a big conglomerate. And they didn’t know anything about building homes, and they didn’t know anything about picking up the nails and the sawdust and selling it, and the scraps of wood … So they called William Levitt up and they said, would you like to buy back your company and he said yes, I would. He so badly wanted it, he got bored with this life of yachts and sailing and all of the things he did in the south of France and other places … But what happened is he bought back his company and he bought back a lot of empty land … and in the end he failed and he failed badly. Lost all of his money. He went personally bankrupt, and he was now much older.

And I saw him at a cocktail party and it was very sad. Because the hottest people in New York were at this party. It was the party of Steve Ross. Steve Ross, he was one of the great people. He came up and discovered – really founded – Time Warner, and he was a great guy. He had a lot of successful people at the party. And I was doing well so I got invited to the party.

[This is a much abbreviated version: you can read the full Levitt reminiscence here and here.]